Rock art of Western Wyoming presentation in Avon Thursday

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The Avon Public Library will host a free program with archaeologist Dave Vlcek on the major rock-art sites of western Wyoming. Vlcek will offer a slideshow presentation at 6:30 p.m. Thursday.

According to Vlcek, the two prominent rock-art styles in western Wyoming are the Dinwoody and Biographic styles. The Dinwoody style is known for its complex, abstract figures pecked into freestanding boulders and cliff faces. Dinwoody rock art is concentrated along the Wind and Bighorn river basins in west-central Wyoming.

Biographic rock art is the predominant rock-art style in western Wyoming.

"This area contains the only known depictions of the iron horse, or a steam locomotive, in all of Wyoming," Vlcek said.

While western Wyoming's rock art is predominantly petroglyphic (executed in stone), Vlcek's presentation also will include an important pictograph site. He will discuss the importance of rock art to archaeologists and Native Americans and the threats to these irreplaceable aspects of Native American culture.

Vlcek graduated from Western Illinois University and spent four years of graduate training at Northern Illinois University. His fieldwork began in the cornfields of Illinois, but he soon moved to study and map the extensive Mayan ruins of the Yucatan.

He spent two years working at the Maya center of Copan, in Honduras, and then switched to the hunter-gatherer-forager sites in Wyoming. Vlcek recently completed a 30-year career working for the Bureau of Land Management in southwestern Wyoming.

This event is free and open to the public. For more information, call the Avon Public Library at 970-949-6797.